Water Police project

Water police action project originated from a continuous water wastage around the community of Galeshwe where our learners reside. The project implementation reached the school, car wash and hair salon, within the community of the learners. Learners observed, conducted interviews and implemented awareness campaigns to turn around the challenges that were presented from observations and interviews. The results of the awareness were observed from the reduced school water bill, reduced water wastage from the car wash and water use efficiency application at the hair salon. Furthermore, social media accounts for this project are gaining an active audience. It is recommended that this project is replicated in other communities so that its positive impact can be realised.

We noticed that, in our school water was wasted in many ways. In numerous occasions we found water in the toilets running, leaking taps and taps that are not closed properly, and we slowly noticed the same examples in our community.

We realised that, in our school water was wasted in many ways. In numerous occasions we found water in the toilets running, which meant after flushing the learners did not bother to check if the water kept running or not. Furthermore, in the same bathroom taps are not being properly closed after being used, which means that the taps are continuously dripping. During lunch hours the learners drink water from the tap without using cups and rinse their dishes at the tap without closing the tap in-between washes. Gawande and Sarode (2019) mention that saving of existing water sources is important and that this can be achieved through many ways including recycling, reuse of water. The problem of water wastage made us very concerned about the amount of water being wasted in our school premises which led to the following question, ‘What can we do to protect this precious resource?’ Again, we wondered if such water losses were happening in our school, where there any in our community? This led us to further identify problems in our community and create an awareness aimed at addressing water wastage in our community. We noticed that the MTN Moonlite Bozza Car Wash (see Figure 1), which is approximately 200m away from our school, continuously uses water. The overflowing water from the MTN Moonlite Bozza Car Wash runs into the road and as a result, the stagnant water causes damage to the road infrastructure by creating potholes. This made us concerned more especially because potholes may cause accidents and since these carwashes were so close to our school this may lead in one of our learners being a victim. Another business we took interest in was the NORA-Dee Hair and Beauty Salon (see Figure 2), situated approximately 50m away from our school. They use water to wash hair and according to Deby, the owner, they roughly see about three (3) to five (5) customers per day as their business is mostly targeted at braiding clients. They do not re-use the water as it is contaminated with chemicals. We also discovered that same as in our school in-between washes they do not close the tap. Having discovered all these problems, we decided to act and be part of the solution, decided to create an awareness campaign, and this is how we went about it and form the Water Police project.